Despite two years of feverish scrutiny, the pair managed to keep one of the world's most anticipated weddings shrouded from the media's glare.

When? Where? Why haven't they yet? Did they already? The celebrity press and "Brangelina" alike fans had been consumed with the matrimonial mystery.

Then on Thursday, a spokesman for the couple quietly confirmed to The Associated Press that Hollywood's undisputed royal couple had wed Saturday in a private ceremony in Southern France.

Jolie and Pitt exchanged vows in a small chapel at the Chateau Miraval in the Provence hamlet of Correns. Since 2008, Miraval has been their Southern France home, a sprawling estate they bought three years ago.

The union was less a vow of commitment than the official affirmation of one made long ago. Pitt and Jolie have been together nearly a decade and have six children, all of whom participated in the wedding.

The wedding may have been cloaked in secrecy, but Pitt and Jolie are preparing to be a big presence at the movies this fall. Pitt stars in the upcoming World War II drama "Fury," due out Oct. 17. Jolie's second directorial effort, the World War II odyssey "Unbroken," will be released in December.

On Thursday, Pitt was far from any honeymoon hideaway. Instead, he was at the Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset, U.K., promoting "Fury," a brutal tale about a tank of American soldiers rolling through Europe in the final days of World War II.

Both movies could be major players in Hollywood's award season, which last year was dominated by a film produced by Pitt, the best picture-winning historical drama "12 Years a Slave."

In advance of the nondenominational civil ceremony, Pitt and Jolie obtained a marriage license from a local California judge. The judge also conducted the ceremony in France.

Pitt once said that he didn't want to marry until gay marriage was legal everywhere, but in recent years, the couple had said publicly they intended to. They were engaged in early 2012 after some seven years together.

"It's an exciting prospect, even though for us, we've gone further than that," Pitt told The AP in an interview in November 2012. "But to concretize it in that way, it actually means more to me than I thought it would. It means a lot to our kids."

This is the second marriage for Pitt, who wed Jennifer Aniston in 2000. They divorced in 2005.

Jolie was previously married to British actor Jonny Lee Miller for three years in the late 1990s and to Billy Bob Thornton for three years before divorcing in 2003. Jolie has said she and Pitt fell in love while making the 2005 film "Mr. & Mrs. Smith."

Jolie won the best-actress Oscar for 2008's "Changeling" and a best supporting actress Oscar for "Girl, Interrupted" in 1999. Pitt shared the Academy Award for best picture for "12 Years A Slave."